Great helm liners

[Sir Edward]

For helmet crests, I think we've all found different solutions, from wooden sculptures, to plastic, to leather, to paper mache. There's a lot of different ways to make them, depending on the look you want.

[Sir Brian]

Here are some pictures of what I came up with for mounting several different crests onto my same kind of great helm. Since the taking of these pictures I have added additional mounting holes for 4 different crests onto this one universal mounting board.




Using this mounting board also has the added benefit of providing a means of easily securing the mantle and torse onto the helm with some decorative string. 

[Sir Wolf]

as far as i know in later 15th century great helmets are definitely not used. early like right after the turn of the century they would be more like the pembridge styles.

[Sir Patrick]

Hmm i see. Also I've been looking into getting horns or plumes for my great helm or somthing to mount ontop of it, where did you gets get yours?

Here's the thread that showed how I made mine.  I chime in about halfway down page 1.

http://modernchivalry.org/forum/index.php/topic,495.0.html

[Sir Wolf]

that liner also looks like it could have been used in a great bassinet.

[Leganoth]

I was thinking more along the lines of feathered horns or just horns such as this.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots_pc/med2k/med2king_large_9.jpg

[Sir Patrick]

I was thinking more along the lines of feathered horns or just horns such as this.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots_pc/med2k/med2king_large_9.jpg

Cool!

[Leganoth]

^ But i wouldnt know how to make such a thing and then put it onto my helm

[Sir Patrick]

Check out this link and watch the videos (the techniques can easily be applied to horns).  The cloth he uses at the end is simply bedsheets cut into strips and soaked in white glue.  At that point, you could paint the horns, or cover them in nicer cloth/thin leather.  The horns should be pretty strurdy, but also light.  As far as attchments go, I would use rare earth magnets (the stronger the better)  I'll tell you from personal experience, you REALLY have to pull to get those magnets to come off a helmet!  Hope this helps.

http://www.gourmetpapermache.com/Video_Page.html

[Leganoth]

Ah yes much help, should work good I'll get started eventually once i get the stuff

[Leganoth]

Brought my helm to school so my gf could measure for a torse and start that, some bastards picked up my helm and lunch and scratched the pount of the cross covering your chin down !!

[Sir Edward]

Man, that's not cool. The good news is that your armor can look a little more battle-worn once it has some nicks and dents.

[Sir William]

Battle-worn is a good look.

[Sir James A]

^ But i wouldnt know how to make such a thing and then put it onto my helm

The best place to get dragon horns is to cut them from the carcass of a recently slain dragon.

But as for finding the dragon....

[James Barker]

I know I am coming to this thread rather late but I think I have the answer on the liners for you. I do not beleive early great helmets were themselves padded, instead the wearer had a padded coif under the maille, or a padded roll attached to the coif on the outside, a skull cap with padding above or under the maille coif layer, or a small bascinet helmet that was padded under the great helm.

Skull caps are seen in the 12th century straight through the GH era. The bascinet is a 14th century helmet. The padded roll is seen in 12th and 13th century effigies.

If you look here you can see both the small helmet and padded roll options http://www.themcs.org/armour/14th%20century%20armour.htm

If you look at this Maciejowski bible image (1250) you see the point is back the the knight in front has a skull cap under the maille. 



Effigies of early crusaders show the padded roll I mention: